This unique report provides global statistics on industrial robots in standardized tables and enables national comparisons to be made. It presents statistical data for around 40 countries broken down into areas of application, customer industries, types of robots and other technical and economic aspects. Production, export and import data is listed for selected countries. It also offers robot density, i.e. the number of robots per 10,000 employees, as a measure for the degree of automation.

The data is collected from nearly all industrial robot suppliers worldwide either as primary data or as secondary data through national robotics associations. Therefore, World Robotics Industrial Robots covers the global industrial robot market. The publication also provides estimates of the operational stock of industrial robots at year-end.

Chapter 1 contains definitions, classifications, and general methodological remarks.

Chapter 2 analyzes the worldwide spread of industrial robots. It contains summary tables of the world robot stock and the global robot supply by country, by application, or by industry.


For the Republic of China, the United States, Japan, Germany and the Republic of Korea, the value of the robot market, and the average unit prices of robots are calculated and an estimate of the total world market value of industrial robot sales is deduced.

The chapter also contains analyses on the development of industrial robot densities (number of robots in operation per 10,000 employees) in the manufacturing industry of over 40 countries and in the automotive versus the general industry (manufacturing without automotive) for over 20 countries.


Chapter 3 presents statistical data on industrial robots for some 40 countries. The market analyses provide a discussion of the present situation and deduce a forecast of future robot installations for major markets. (see sample chapter)

Chapter 4 discusses technological trends, market trends, and presents the forecast for the ongoing year and the next three years.


Finally, chapter 5 of World Robotics Industrial Robots provides a selection of case studies or use cases of actual robot installations from different countries and industries. These case studies illustrate the effects of robots on costs, production and employment and indicate the overall profitability of robot investments. They demonstrate how robots can solve specific problems, how such solutions have been obtained and what the implications are.

Contact IFR

Dr. Susanne Bieller

IFR General Secretary

Lyoner Str. 18
DE-60528 Frankfurt am Main
Phone: +49 69-6603-1502
E-Mail: secretariat(at)ifr.org

Dr. Christopher Müller

Director IFR Statistical Department

Lyoner Str. 18
DE-60528 Frankfurt am Main
Phone: +49 69-6603-11 91
E-Mail: statistics(at)ifr.org

Silke Lampe

Assistant IFR Secretariat

Lyoner Str. 18
DE-60528 Frankfurt am Main
Phone: +49 69-6603-1697
E-Mail: secretariat(at)ifr.org

Nina Kutzbach

Assistant IFR Statistical Department

Lyoner Str. 18
DE-60528 Frankfurt am Main
Phone: +49 69-6603-1518
E-Mail: statistics(at)ifr.org